A muddled compromise

It took President Obama several months to settle on a policy for the United States’ involvement in Afghanistan and for that, he was accused of “dithering” by former Vice President Dick Cheney and others. But the delay in Mr. Obama’s decision is understandable: There are simply no good options.

An open-ended commitment at current troop strength would likely drag on for another eight or 10 years and end inconclusively, if not badly, for the U.S. That would be unacceptable to an American public that is already tired of this war that was begun in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001.

A hasty withdrawal, on the other hand, would embolden the Taliban and its al-Qaida allies to retake power in that rugged, lawless country. More important for U.S. strategic interests, a pullout would set the Islamic militants based in Afghanistan free to make a major move on neighboring Pakistan, which has nuclear weapons. That, too, is unthinkable.

So the president in his address at West Point on Tuesday tried to strike a tricky balance: He will commit 30,000 more troops over the coming months to increase the U.S. command’s counterinsurgency ability.

But at the same time, he set a timetable for future withdrawal, which will begin in the middle of 2011. The time-frame is necessary, he said, to pressure Afghanistan’s government to understand that it can’t rely on the U.S. military to prop it up indefinitely; that it will have to step up to its responsibility to get control of the nation itself sooner not later.

Mr. Obama clearly crafted this hybrid approach with domestic political concerns, including widespread concern about the huge cost of waging this war, in mind. He’s trying to placate his relentless critics and his increasingly restless base at the same time, and, while it may buy him some time politically, it will probably satisfy neither in the long run. ¦The troop increase is significant and brings the total U.S. complement to 100,000, but is still 15,000 fewer troops than Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the theater commander, said was the minimum necessary to avoid disaster. If Gen. McChrystal’s assessment is correct, as many of the president’s conservative critics insist, his scaled-back “surge” might only postpone that failure.

At the same time, the president’s commitment to an exit timetable may assuage some of his supporters on the left, but the fact is Americans will still be fighting and dying in Afghanistan through 2011.

The two-pronged approach, Mr. Obama said, could “bring this war to a successful conclusion.”

We, like many Americans, aren’t so sure. The haunting, core question is whether Afghanistan can ever become a stable nation, given its turbulent history and medieval, warlord-dominated culture — even with 150,000 more U.S. troops around to try to keep the peace. The outrageous corruption of President Hamid Karzai’s government only makes the idea of a strong, respected central government in such an anarchic place seem even more remote.

If those fears are well founded, then it’s fair to ask why the president would want to throw any more American soldiers or money into that mess.

And if success is still possible in Afghanistan, as the president claims, then why would the president want to jeopardize that slim chance by lowballing the troop surge in spite of the recommendation of his commander on the ground? And why give it an expiration date that the Taliban and al-Qaida can point toward?

There are no good options in Afghanistan, but by trying to please all parties with this muddled compromise, the president seems to have managed to choose the worst of them. We can only hope we’re wrong.